AN IRISHMAN WHO was extradited to the United States has been sentenced to over six years in prison for his role in the operation of the narcotics ‘Silk Road’ website. 

Gary Davis (31), who went by the alias Libertas, was a Silk Road administrator in 2013 and was paid a weekly salary to carry out duties that included resolving disputes between drug dealers and buyers on the “dark web” site.

The Wicklow man was arrested in Ireland in January 2014 and extradited to the United States in July 2018, where he had faced a battery of charges. Last October, Davis pleaded guilty in New York to narcotics conspiracy over the now-defunct online marketplace. 

Until the FBI shut it down in October 2013, the US government called Silk Road “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet”, used by vendors in more than 10 countries in North America and Europe.

Texan mastermind Ross Ulbricht was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for running the online enterprise that sold $200 million in drugs worldwide.

In Manhattan Federal Court yesterday, Davis was sentenced to 78 months in prison – six and a half years. 

He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and fined $25,000 (€22,400).

Following, Davis’ sentencing, Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “Gary Davis helped run the Silk Road website – a dark web marketplace for illegal drugs, hacking services, and other criminal activity.”

“Davis’s arrest, extradition from Ireland, conviction, and prison sentence should send an unmistakable message: the dark web does not cast shadows long enough to protect criminals from the long arm of the law.”